


Distance

by contradichen



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4615218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contradichen/pseuds/contradichen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The scariest thing about distance is that you don’t know whether they’ll miss you or forget you.”<br/>― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook</p><p>Jongdae misses Yixing. The time Yixing spends working in China meant that they were separated most days of the week. But the distance between them, had become more than physical. </p><p>Based on recent real-life happenings, and my imagination took over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xingdae's been giving me more angst than they usually do, so I just word-vomited this on one angsty night and reworked it to the version you're reading right now. I'm in no way an experienced writer (compared to all the amazing fandom writers we have), this was just written for fun (though it's really not so fun). It's open for continuation so leave a comment with your ideas, would love to work with them! But for now, hope you enjoy, or at least not feel too much pain, reading this.
> 
> In this first piece, Xingdae are just friends at this point in time.

_9th August._

Jongdae sighs again and stares up at his phone and wonders if he should send a message. A message so crisp and short yet held all the love and concern he held for the other.

> _“Hope you had a good day.”_

 

It had become a nightly ritual for him to lay in the darkness of their shared room, with the light coming off his phone screen digging at his eyes. But every time he types out any semblance of a message, he glares at it and discards it. The backspacekey seems to be the only _thing_ he’s been keeping in touch with lately.

 

Jongdae misses Yixing dearly; there is no doubt about that.

He misses having Yixing around him constantly, a presence that was always reassuring and comforting. But his hesitance is grounded with sound reason, at least that’s what he rationalises it to be.

 

They rarely saw or spoke to each other these days; God knows when even the text messages they shared started to dwindle. He knows he should take the first step, but that lack of courage stemmed from the string of messages that lay unanswered. They were clearly _Read_ , and every time he opened their chat, the word seemed to mock him with the ostensibly one-sided conversation.

 

He reasons that perhaps he’s at fault for having expectations of receiving a reply. He sends messages that don’t ask for one, in a semi-attempt to be considerate of Yixing’s busy schedule.

> “ _Hope your day went well.”_
> 
> _“Make sure you rest after your filming today (:”_

 

Really, the latter could have possibly been too tired or busy to type out a _simple_ reply, like “ _Thanks”_. That was definite sarcasm running through Jongdae’s mind as he made an unconscious grunt.  

 

Communicating with the Chinese male had always been a semi-resolved mystery for Jongdae. Back when they first met each other, they had spoken to each other in awkward sentences. Jongdae had not spoken nor understood a word of Chinese and Yixing was still in the process of tweaking his awkward Korean. But being roommates helped them find their way with and around each other. Over time, they had grown to understand each other through their actions. Spending nearly all their time together worked wonders for their relationship and they often spent their time together in comfortable silence. Even when times got tough, they understood each other. It’s not like they never spoke. On the contrary, they did talk about things, about lots of things. They talked about _life,_ the music that Yixing worked on together, and their aspirations, their feelings even. Jongdae thought that mystery was somewhat resolved, albeit with some questions unanswered. But he was happy with where they were, with the bond they had forged.

 

Lately, however, Jongdae had never felt more distant from Yixing. Each unanswered message that he sent felt like an arrow being shot at a stonewall, repelling and rebounding off it with a dented tip. His pride, in this case was the tip of the arrowhead.

 

The reality of it all was that it wasn’t just about the text messages. Yixing did come back every week or two for concert schedules or practice. Conversations rarely made headway between them before they died out with an awkward silence and they would move on to their own stuff. It had never been like this between them, and it stung. They could barely hold eye contact with his eyes shifting. It stung even more when he watched Yixing fall into the usual playful banter with his members, or the conversations he’d have with Baekhyun or Minseok hyung in their concert dressing rooms. No one else seemed to notice the mounting wall between them.

 

 _Fortunately_ (or unfortunately, he could never decide), Yixing never stayed longer than beyond his needed appearances for EXO and Jongdae busied himself in the meantime by fussing over the other members or going through the sheets of music for his upcoming musical. Yixing, too, was constantly busy on his MacBook, working on his music or whatever work he had to do with his studio in China. None too surprisingly, Yixing had left again the night before for his work in China, leaving Jongdae to be alone in their large shared room. It made it easier that Yixing either left when he was still asleep, or when he was out of their apartment. Yet in as much as he tries to distract himself from Yixing, Jongdae could never resist searching up Yixing’s activities on the Internet or on his SNS accounts to see how he was doing every night before bed.

 

Jongdae looks at the clock at the corner of his phone screen – “01:30AM”. He realises he had been staring at his screen blankly for ten minutes now and allowed himself to give up sending another message to Yixing. He pressed on the homescreen button and slides the screen of his iPhone with other hand, and opened the Weibo app. He doesn’t understand a ton of what’s been written, but he could make out the gist of whatever he scrolled through and read.

 

He was just giggling at the antics of his fans and how they were gushing over his butt wriggling gif, but the next post he had scrolled down to read tipped his emotional balance. It was just like any other regular Weibo update from Yixing, this time with a friend that Yixing had invited over to his hotel room in Shanghai – Yixing had thanked him for his great friendship and for giving him opinions and words of encouragement on his music. He thought he’d be used to seeing updates of Yixing with his numerous friends and acquaintances on his SNS by now, but he obviously thought wrong.

 

Tears pricked his eyes, and he stubbornly rubbed them off with the back of his hand before they could fall. _What was he truly feeling?_ Anger? Sadness? Frustration? Fear? Jongdae had always been honest with himself and it was probably a mix of everything. Anger and sadness that their relationship had come to this; frustration because he didn’t know how to make the anger or sadness go away; and fear that this meant the end of them as it is. He knew he was tired and maybe it was time to face up to the reality that he wasn’t as important in Yixing’s life as he thought himself to be. Admittedly, he was too afraid to ask Yixing for fear that it was true, that this friendship weighed peanuts compared to what Jongdae valued it to be. Even his fans saw through his obvious admiration for Yixing. It isn’t as if he expects Yixing to broadcast their friendship through his regular SNS posts or mention him in any one of his dozens of interviews. But it really felt much like a one-sided relationship, a relationship that only Jongdae seemed to care about. 

 

Jongdae put down his phone on his side table as disappointment swept through his entire being. In the darkness, he rolled to face the other side of bed, shut his eyes and allowed a single tear to roll down his cheek.


End file.
